One of my coworkers asked me how we had discovered a fraud transaction so quickly. I told him that my wife came across it when looking at our online statement.
“Oh I don’t ever balance my check book!” he declared, telling me that he knew roughly how much was in there, and when he goes to the atm and can’t pull anything out, this is how he knows he has no money. This worked for a while for me too when I was 18 and a complete fucking moron.
You don’t have to obsessively check every transaction of your banking, but somewhere between here and there is a happy margin of managing your money.

Like most people, a lot of our friends are in debt. Unable to understand how to eliminate it, they often use it as a crutch for their life situation. There are many strategies, and endless advice on getting out of debt. But before you can build an emergency fund, or begin any well thought out plan you need to stop continuing your debt before all else. It’s bad enough that many people are paying the minimum payments on their credit cards, but every month they’re adding more and more purchases onto that bill. Cut up all of your credit cards. Stop accumulating more debt. This should not be a very emotional thing to do, and if it is then you have a long road ahead of you, and perhaps you’re not ready to get out of debt, and maybe never will. There are a vast number of people who do not see anything wrong with carrying heavy debt. There are people who do not see how the advertising industry has perverted our lives, people who do not understand that hyper consumerism is escapism. For these people endless meaningless buying is not a problem, but a solution to something more empty in their lives. Until you know where you stand on these things, you will never be able to take your financial situation seriously. You will never understand frugal living, and financial responsibility. Where do you stand?